Delicious Brownies for 2nd Blog Anniversary!

This month is full of celebrations at home. My hubby’s B’day, my son’s B’day and what else? My Blog’s second Anniversary! My blog turned two on 11th March, just a day after my hubby’s B’day. I wanted to make this a special post on 11th itself but I was all busy during these days, preparing something for my hubby’s B’day and had to go out of town to do some shopping as well. Since the major shopping malls are not near our apartment, myself and my son took a bus to the main town centre. It was his first bus ride and he thoroughly enjoyed it, me too.

I can’t just believe that I have been scribbling in here for 2 years!!I don’t know if blog was the reason, but my cooking has gone much beyond than what I thought I would be able to do. Lots and lots of experiments, trying out new ingredients that comes in everyday cooking, discovering new taste, learning new cuisine and trying to perfect each and every dish has all become part of a blogging routine. I thoroughly enjoy cooking and trying out new dishes every time. There has been many success and quite a few failures (one happened even today.) during experiments which has to be eaten (Not the failed outcome) by my poor hubby and son and sometimes friends who come over. Bless them all. Blogging can also be stressful at times, for no reason, as if we are preparing for an exam or so. Lot to think about; which recipe to blog next, what to type, how to write, how the pictures should be, it’s background and so and so, yeah, sounds like and international matter, right? I am definite that every blogger will be going through the same phase, thinking about blog matters every time apart from sleeping.



Apart from all that, blogging has gifted me a bunch of beautiful friends who has become so close to me over time. There is also a beautiful network of virtual friends who I am regular in contact with through comment section and sometimes orkut. I would like to thank each and every one including my readers for their encouragement and their appreciation through out and accepting me in the blogger’s world.

Now coming to the recipe, I have posted another recipe of brownies long back when then I promised to post brownies which uses cocoa powder. One of my readers ‘Faina’ had asked me for an easy dessert recipe and this one is for her. I found this recipe so easy to prepare; hardly took me any time. When I go for any recipes, I am always on the lookout for one that uses minimum amount of butter. I wanted to make a small batch of brownies, just to satisfy my chocolate craving. I followed a recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mmm-Mmm-Better-Brownies/Detail.aspx. This was one with loads of great reviews from people. So, I made it over the weekend and took half of it to our friends place. They loved it so much that the whole stuff got over the same night. If i had kept it at home myself and my son would have finished the whole stuff by myself. We just could take our hands off the pan. I kept on pinching small bits from the corner of the brownie little by little just to realise that a huge portion has already been eaten! This time I dint add any nuts to the brownie because my son hates nuts in his cakes. You may add them if you wish. I wanted to add a bit of coffee granules in the recipe as well but remembered them only when I popped the pan into the oven!

Now,to check the doneness of the brownie, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and you should be able to see little moist and sticky crumbs at the tip of the skewer. That is if you like your brownie to be fudgy and slightly chewy. I guess I like mine really underdone, so I might reduce the cooking time even further. The batter itself was so delicious:).



Ingredients:
½ cup plain flour
1/3 cup (5 Tbsp) Cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs (if small, use 3)
1/3 cup (50g)white chocolate, cut into chunks (optional)
1/3 cup (50g) dark chocolate, cut into chunks (optional)
½ cup (113g) butter melted
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
½ Tbsp vanilla extract

Preparation:
1. Preheat an oven to 175 degrees Celsius and line a 8 inch cake tin with baking paper. Melt butter in a sauce pan, on low heat. Once completely melted, add sugar and mix well. Let it cool completely.

2. Add vanilla extract and eggs and mix thoroughly using a wire whisk, just to breakup eggs and get a homogenous mixture.

3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Make sure there are no lumps.

4. Add this sifted flour mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. Mix well using a spoon.

5. Add the chocolate chunks and mix well.

6. Pour this batter onto the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.

Notes:
1. Make sure you don’t add eggs to hot butter and sugar mixture; else you will end up having scrambled eggs!

2. You don’t have to use an electric blender to whisk and don’t over beat after the addition of eggs.

3. While melting butter, make sure you melt at low heat. High heat can burn butter.